If you want to return money to a guest because you had to cancel the booking or the booking was changed, the refund will be handled depending on your payment settings and policy settings.
Automatic refunds can be configured in your payment settings; however, if they are not enabled, refunds must be issued manually through Lodgify or directly via third-party payment services such as Stripe, PayPal. To do so, access the corresponding payment gateway (using the Gateway Transaction ID for Stripe) and process the refund directly from your payment gateway.
💡 Note: In case you need to make a refund that is outside your cancellation policy or for a different amount than calculated by your cancellation policy, you need to make a manual refund before you cancel the booking.
Read about:
Refunds for imported bookings
Bookings imported from external channels need to be canceled and refunded in the following way:
| Channel | Cancellation/refund |
| Airbnb Professional | needs to be canceled and refunded in Airbnb. |
| Booking.com |
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| Expedia |
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| HomeAway/VRBO |
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💡 Note: Always check the individual account settings and terms of the integrated platforms to ensure compliance with their refund processes.
Refunds with automatic refund function activated
In case a cancellation policy has triggered a refund in the system, and you have activated the automatic refund function in your credit card gateway settings (Payyo, Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.Net), the money will be automatically refunded without any further action from your side. This however requires that the booking had an active Policy & Quote workflow, and was paid by credit card.
If any of these conditions are not met, the refund will need to be done manually. For specific use cases, take a look at this article.
The scheduled refunds are triggered every 4 hours, so if a user cancels a booking that should trigger a refund automatically, it could take up to 4 hours to see the refund done.
💡 Note: This setting is only available for Lodgify bookings which have been made through your website, or created manually. It is not currently possible to schedule automatic refunds for reservations made through Booking.com or Expedia.
Manually issue a refund in Lodgify
If the automatic refund function in your credit card gateway has not been enabled, or you are using Paypal, Bank Transfer, Cash, or the reservation was made via Booking.com or Expedia but was charged in Lodgify, you will need to manually issue a refund in Lodgify.
Follow these steps to register a refund in Lodgify:
- Refund your guest on your side.
- Go to your left-hand menu and select Reservations.
- Select the booking you want to edit, go to the Payment collection box, and click the + icon next to the transaction you want to refund.
| If... | then... |
|---|---|
| You used credit card to collect the payment, but haven't activated the automatic refund |
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| Your booking did not have an active Policy & Quote workflow | |
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Your booking was made in Booking.com or Expedia but was charged in Lodgify | |
| You want to make a partial refund outside your Policy & Quote workflow |
💡 Note: If you have any upcoming scheduled or overdue transactions, our system may not allow you to issue a partial refund outside of your policy. In this case, please process the refund directly through your payment gateway and then mark the amount as refunded in Lodgify. |
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Paypal, Bank Transfer, or cash to collect the payment 💡 Note: In this case, refunds in the Lodgify Reservation System are currently only to ensure your Transaction Records are up-to-date and reflect your payments received/refunded correctly. You will still need to make the actual payment to your guest via one of the channels mentioned above. |
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